TOPICS

The Foresight Conference covers the key topics required for an integrated understanding of molecular nanotechnology:

Products and goals

Nanostructures underlie all nanotechnologies. Their diverse physical, chemical and electronic properties determine what nanotechnologies can do.Nanomaterials gain special mechanical, optical, and electronic properties from their nanoscale structure.Nanodevices  including sensors, transistors, actuators, and others  will be components first of early products, and later of advanced nanosystems.Nanoelectronics is a natural extension of the microelectronic technologies of today, expected to be a crucial application of emerging nanotechnologies.

Enabling technologies, tools, and parts

Sensors at the nanoscale can be used to recognize molecules and to probe the properties of surfaces and objects at the atomic scale.Nanotubes provide strong, stiff building blocks with diverse electronic properties, suiting them for use in a wide range of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS).Biomolecular machinery evolved by nature  such as the bacterial flagellar motor and the actin-myosin system of muscle  has shown the feasibility of molecular machine systems and may provide prefabricated working components.Scanning probe instruments have led the way in imaging and manipulating molecular structures on surfaces.Computational chemistry enables designers of molecular systems to understand which designs will produce which results, helping synthetic chemists to produce devices that will function properly in systems.Molecular machines produce controlled motion on a molecular scale. By bringing other molecules together in a controlled way, they will one day be used to control the sequences of chemical reactions that will enable molecular manufacturing of complex nanosystems.

Enabling sciences and principles

Supramolecular chemistry  by moving beyond the traditional concern with individual molecules to a focus on building larger structures from assemblages of molecules  is a key enabling technology for a wide range of nanosystems.Self-assembly  the principle behind supramolecular chemistry and the assembly of the molecular machinery of living systems  is central both to many present-generation nanotechnologies and to anticipated pathways toward complex nanosystems.

GENERAL

The Foresight Nanotech Institute's first Conference on Nanotechnology, which pre-dated the National Nanotechnology Initiative by a decade, was the first comprehensive conference on the topic of nanotechology. Foresight-sponsored events continue to be the premiere venue for discussing new and innovative multidisciplinary research in nanotechnology. This meeting attracts researchers from academic, government, and corporate laboratories worldwide, and includes papers from the electronics, medical, computing, physics, chemistry, materials science, and biology communities. Foresight's 13th Conference will continue this level of excellence by providing a forum in which leaders from all disciplines delving into science and technology at the nanoscale can present and discuss their most recent results and ideas.

Researchers, technologists, and others who want to review the cutting edge of nanotechnology are encouraged to attend.